


Heart Between Your Teeth

by deathwailart



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Angst, Childbirth, F/M, Grey Wardens, Implied Sexual Content, Pregnancy, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-07
Updated: 2013-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-10 18:05:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/788582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Morrigan has always been a male and still has his plans only falling in love with the Warden isn't really one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart Between Your Teeth

He was not what his mother wanted but Flemeth has always known how to make plans. Luckily he can too.  
  
He's his mother's son, not that either of them will admit it. She tells him to find Chasind girls, the smarter ones to beget a daughter on one of them, a daughter she can raise. He lies with the Chasind girls and sometimes sneaks off with girls from villages but he knows enough about herbs to know what to take, what to give them come morning. Morrigan has no daughters to bring back to Flemeth.  
  
Morrigan instead plans to have a son, Flemeth wants a powerful daughter. The Grey Wardens are the perfect opportunity.  
  
Circle robes she wore when first they met in the Wilds, Rhiannon Amell with three young men. When next they meet she is wearing the robes of a Chasind with pale flesh showing at her thighs and breast and he wants her – he is a man and there are few Mages he knows. She values his opinion when they travel and she is flirtatious, ready to snark with him as the other young Warden looks on with confused and sometimes jealous eyes. She doesn't understand him fully and he does not understand her but it's more than he has ever had, more than he even thought he could have and it starts to scare him. She didn't enjoy being kept there in the Circle and sometimes she mentions a boy – young man now – that she was friends with who tried time and again to escape.  
  
"They locked him up for a year Morrigan," she tells him in the dark of night at his fire when they sit shoulder to shoulder. "If you kept your head down, if you did as you were told—" She breaks off as she so often does when talking of her life before and the stories come to him in fractured bits and pieces, fragments here and there. She isn't Wynne who respects the rules of the Circle and believes it to be necessary but she was the golden girl by her own admission, First Enchanter's favourite but she isn't blind to all the faults. In whispers with eyes that will never meet his she tells him about the things the Templars did to some of the Mages, attacking at the slightest provocation (often looking for reasons or plucking them from thin air) and abusing their power. "It was safe being the one who kept trying to do their best. Irving and Greagoir were good friends and the good little Mage who follows the rules doesn't have Templars kicking her in the head." It's rare that venom creeps into her voice but it does when she speaks of what happened to so many of them and that, even though not all of them get on well, that she envies them for knowing their mothers. She doesn't remember much of her, only her crying as she was taken away, trying to hold on as the Templars took her away.  
  
Morrigan can't imagine Flemeth fighting tooth and nail for him. And perhaps it is part of why he looks at her and thinks that his plan might not be so mad after all. He never dares to bring it up on the road. She has too much to think of and you never reveal your hand. For this to work he needs the opportune moment and he is jeopardising too much by caring for her as much as he does which was never part of the plan. When he spurns her from his bed he wonders if she'll move on and go with the Antivan who makes eyes at her or her fellow Warden who certainly does give her looks although perhaps Alistair simply wants a friend who understands what he's going through. But she doesn't. She stays, she talks, she brings him gifts and he doesn't know why she thinks of all these glittering things and thinks that he'll be the one to want them but when she hands over the mirror with a secretive smile he's grown to love. (Flemeth lectured him so often on love, talking of the men in the legends who both claimed to love her, men who used her and that's what he's doing here. He's using her. She is a means to an end. It doesn't make it any easier to admit that to himself.)  
  
There's a panic about when the opportunity will present itself but it falls into his lap, fate or chance creeping up as he listens to what this Riordan speaks of. So he comes to her with this plan and hopes she'll take it. He says he'll save her life, he'll save Alistair's life, that they are the last two of their kind. And when she turns on him he accepts her hurt but he assures her that it was not the only reason he became close. He cannot say that he loves her, not now, perhaps not ever but he is offering her a life to keep living when she has only just been given freedom from a life trapped in a tower. It is to save their skins, he repeats. He watches her weigh the options and she leaves for a time as he paces the room; he knows full well what it is he asks of her, to bear a child and to go into battle with that child within her. It could kill her, the taint in her veins already, the essence and soul of the very beast she is to kill all held within her body in a ritual brought about by magic that maybe only Flemeth and Morrigan know. Maybe she will not go through with it and will instead make that final sacrifice herself in which case he will need to hurry and find any woman to lie with but she returns, looking uncertain.  
  
They speak little as they prepare and it might be the last time he will be allowed to touch her like this even if it should work and she should survive. His hands are gentle, mouth soft and sweet. Normally in camp they are frantically rushing in the dark, firelight and cold winds, their robes hiked up and out of the way. She has a Warden's appetite and stamina and he has never had to use his magic so inventively before and she seems to sense that this could be the very last time and she takes all the time in the world to explore him. He traces old injuries that are still healing, places that will scar from a dragon's mouth or Darkspawn blade, the place where a spider's fangs sunk deep into the meat of her thigh. It isn't something that makes the earth move and even though they could be as loud as they like here with stone walls and a proper bed they are quiet, soft gasps and sighs and when at last they collapse against the sheets sweating and spent, he lets her draw one of his hands to her and lay it flat upon her belly.  
  
"I don't know what I expected," she murmurs with exhaustion slurring her speech. She isn't sleeping well. She's not really sleeping at all now as it draws to a close and he doesn't know how she holds herself up when she tosses and turns all night, every night, wakes with bitten off yelps and trembles at the horrors she has seen and replayed in her mind over and over, this Archdemon hunting for her. "I thought it would be something they spoke of in Tevinter, that the world would break apart because," she yawns hugely and rests her head on his shoulder, long dark waves of hair mussed and wild, "we're breaking the rules here."  
  
Morrigan stays quiet and gathers her close, dreaming about a son with his eyes and his magic who will meet any challenge and never back down.  
  
He doesn't fight at her side when it comes to that last battle and he has to swallow every urge to do something rash and foolish – he has lost his heart to her already, he has given away a piece of himself to her without knowing when he had every intention not to – so instead he tells her to live gloriously and that he knew nothing of friendship before he met her. It's all true. What time they have left is so fleeting and it's already slipping away. The march from Redcliffe to Denerim is too long and she might die before she gets to the Archdemon. So much hinges on so very little, balanced on a knife edge with all these Darkspawn before them and he presses a ring into her hand that she slips on her finger instantly; absurdly he thinks of weddings among the proper folk who like to do this so the child won't be a bastard and she already has a baby on the way. Then she is gone and he fights alongside those she left behind, her faithful Mabari hound staying with him as if sensing some change. The dog is much smarter than most of the party she has with her and fighter when his mistress is involved than many others could ever hope to be.  
  
"Are you mad?" Alistair shouts much later when she tells him about the deal. "You went and fought an Archdemon in—in your delicate condition?"  
  
"Alistair it was barely there! What other choice was there? I'm a Grey Warden, I had to fight how could I sit by and let all the rest of you fight? It would've raised eyebrows!" She retorts furiously. Morrigan lurks around Denerim in the aftermath of the victory party now that all the celebrations have devolved into drinking contests, singing and tears, glory and grief mingling together. "I knew the risks. This was my choice."  
  
"You should be resting and off your feet, Maker you're going to be a mother!"  
  
"You can't tell anyone – swear to me Alistair. You can't."  
  
"I won't, are you—what happens with you and _him_?"  
  
She sighs and Morrigan wishes he were there with her but officially, he isn't even around. He's a black cat hidden in the shadows and that is how it is has to be until they're somewhere safe for the time being. "He saved your skin too Alistair, either of us could have taken that final blow," she finally says quietly and he can hear the exhaustion. She's still healing and she was already running on empty before and now there is another life within her, sapping at her reserves. "I'll be back to take the position – don't ask, please, don't. I'll be the Arlessa, I'll rebuild the Warden's. Tell them I need time to sort myself out and plan. I'm allowed that aren't I?"  
  
It's quiet for a long time. Oh how he wants to be in there. He wants to see the expression on her face or the way she holds herself but he remains, tail flicking. "Please be careful. I know, or I guess, that I won't see you until after. Just...you're probably the best friend I've got. How am I going to lead without you?"  
  
"You have Anora," Rhiannon replies. Alistair groans and she laughs, the best sound Morrigan has hear since she was moaning beneath him, "You didn't think I'd _ever_ stick you in any sort of leadership position did you?  
  
Morrigan leaves after that. He wasn't meant to follow her but he suspects she knew he'd trail after her. He doesn't need to hear their goodbyes or laughter, the goodbyes she will trade with all of them. There will be promises to write. She seems the type to write letters and he has no idea why when she had no one to write to before but the more he pictures her, the more right it feels, her at a desk with a quill and ink, working by candlelight.  
  
There will be no letters exchanged between him and her.  
  
When they leave Denerim they follow paths they took before and they kill Darkspawn along the roads until they return to where it all began, to the Wilds because his mother is gone thanks to her though her protection still lingers. The hut is large enough and Lothering might be gone but Morrigan knows how to get what he needs and they have more than enough coin. Perhaps the shadow of Ostagar is wrong for her when they already went back there once to a land sickened beneath their feet, stinking of rot, death and the taint all around them. She says nothing though and simply wards the place and helps to tidy up, setting their things in the right places. He teaches her all he knows of the Wilds and she learns it so quickly that he's thrilled and if only he could allow it, they could be together with a son but no, no she has her duty and he doubts he can do this with her, he needs to do this alone as best he can. The Chasind have clung on in places and they go among them when they can; one of these women will have to be wet nurse in time but they press hands to Rhiannon's belly, they give her charms of luck and protection and soon the ceiling of the hut is full of bones, feathers, twigs and stones that Rhiannon bats at so they cast strange shadows across the floor.  
  
Her dreams are darker now than ever before and he holds her in the night, chest to her back until she thrashes too violently, caught up in nightmares of the things that she has killed and hunted, the taint that flows through her veins. Some nights she doesn't sleep and sits up with her hand rubbing her ever growing belly with a strained look of worry in her eyes, fearful of what she brings into the world. "Sometimes I think I valued my life too much," she says one night with sweat cooling on her skin, "to bring a child into this world with the soul of an Old God. A child with my tainted blood." Morrigan bites his tongue and holds her close. He doesn't say what he wishes to and that he's glad she made a choice to save her own life. It means that even if it's only for a short time, she'll be here for longer. Here in his bed, in his arms. He knows that she's got a life waiting for her and that she'll hold a title of the land and one within the Wardens. Strange to think of the woman here with him being Rhiannon Amell because she'll always be that to him and not the Hero of Ferelden or the soon to be Arlessa of Amaranthine and Warden Commander of Ferelden. Even if the world forgets her name he will remember it. And maybe he will remember her smile and determination, her iron will so great it conquered a Blight in a year; that's what he wants their son to get from her. Strength and courage, determination all in the face of destiny. If there's one thing she can do to prepare him in her absence then it's that.  
  
Nine months, a point she doubted she would reach and he hovers, unwilling to leave her for long should she go into labour alone. She resents him, at least at this point, groaning whenever she moves, uncomfortable. She can't get comfortable in bed and she's too hot or too cold, she still throws up, wants foods they can't get or teas he can't brew and sometimes he can't contain his frustrations culminating in shouting matches that, were she not pregnant (her magic is wilder now, she uses it less because she's scared she'll hurt herself or him or their son) might end with the crackle of mana about them. But he's enjoyed and has jealously treasured their time together because this will be it. There will be no other for him now and he will not see her again. He knows what he must say, it lurks behind his newfound solicitous nature, it wraps itself about his throat waiting to burst free and she puts up with it and pulls him as close as she can, kisses and touches, careful on his part, urgent on hers and he presses lips and hands to the full swell of her belly where little hands and feet press and kick, telling old tales of werewolves and witches and other ancient things.  
  
When her time comes she is more calm than is reasonable, gasping by the fire pit before summoning him to take her back inside _immediately_.  
  
There's a lot of blood. He doesn't know if it's because she's a Warden or because of what their child is or simply one of those things that happens so he panics all the same as she grunts and pants. This still is not the worst pain she has known in her life and no screams escape her even as her skin passes from ashen to sickly. Morrigan never thought he would want that old mage but he does for she is much more skilled at healing than he is and it is hardly as if Rhiannon can heal herself as she grunts and strains. He should have gone for a shaman but as much as they get on with the Chasind, he doubts either of them can trust anyone else enough and there is no guarantee any would have come to render aid. Morrigan is something other and so is Rhiannon. But she is strong and summons that now, grits her teeth and grips his arm tight before going limp against the bed with that vicious smile of hers worn when she has roasted monsters or sent lightning to hiss and crackle through the air. Of course she is victorious, when is she not?  
  
"Do not follow me," he says as he holds their son – he won't be named yet, Morrigan needs time to do this properly – Rhiannon drawing herself up tall and strong as she did with everything else. It's been but a week but she is ready to move because she has to, he knows. He pretends to sleep when she whispers to her son how much she loves him and that she's sorry in the same sentence, that this is how it must be, that none of them get to be masters of their own destiny. She tells him of magic and her life, of how much she loves Morrigan. She is always freer with her love and expressing it. He envies her that. He kisses her goodbye in the spot they departed on their journey and they both pretend not to notice the tears stinging at their eyes. She leaves without looking over her shoulder and he marches off into the Wilds with their son slung against his chest, warm and contented. He is the one to look back until she vanishes into the mist with her shoulders squared as if marching off to war.  
  
Two and a half years. Two and a half years of this child he can barely look at sometimes because this is not a child, this son of his will be something otherworldly. Morrigan raises him with purpose because one day he will not understand this boy. There is the ecstatic barking of a Mabari and he bends to pet the slobbering beast gratefully for he missed him and then there she is. She is smiling but when he says to come no closer she obeys with a nod and smile, soft and sad but measured, as though expecting him to react in such a way.  
  
Temptation lies in the forbidden, Flemeth taught him.  
  
He holds out his hand to her, the dog dancing around his feet. She takes it with another smile, bright and the years wear more heavily on a Warden than any other but she seems younger in an instant, as fresh and vital as she was when he met her.  
  
"Have you lived gloriously?" He asks her as they stand before the mirror to take them to another place where no one else can reach them.  
"Is there any other way?" She replies. She has been worn down by duty, she has given of herself too much he knows from looking at her but now she is allowing herself to be selfish and he loves her for it. "How's our son?"  
"Why don't you see for yourself?" And with that he leads her to through the portal and into another life, neither of them looking back at Ferelden for even a moment.


End file.
